


To Shock the Stars

by duointherain



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:44:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is set after the war by about ten years. It's a get together, though Heero is afraid that Duo ...that something might have happened to him. Includes deep space action and likely aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Shock the Stars

To Shock the Stars 1/?  
by Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing 

Warnings: This is a 1x2x1 story, but it’s a get together. 

 

Heero had not thought about Duo Maxwell in ten years. The war had ended. Preventers found things for Heero to do and there had just always been something to do. He pressed his back to the airlock. The plasma bolt cut through his shadow and melted into nothingness on the outside airlock door. Weapons that could destroy human flesh, but not spacecraft were an advantage when was out closer to Ceres. Everything had been so clear and so important. 

One of the mechanized defenders of the unregistered colony demanded something of him, issued some warning, but Heero just stood there staring at the blood on his glove. There wasn’t that much of it, but it meant that his suit was breached. It meant he was going to die. 

He’d always thought he was okay with dying. So vividly, he remembered pressing the detonate button on Wing. He remembered falling and feeling at peace. He remembered before that trying to destroy the gundams himself, flying a missile towards the end He remembered falling from that building after Duo blew out the window, and he remembered how okay that had been, but this wasn’t okay now. 

Seconds left before the defense systems realized that he wasn’t firing back, before they decided it was safe to approach, but he wanted to know why he wasn’t willing to scatter his neural matter across the airlock, preventing them from retaining him or his knowledge in any form. That was the best outcome he could really expect after such a catastrophic failure. 

His heart sped up, which was about the worst development, given the current circumstances, but there in his memory was Duo Maxwell, the last memory he had of him. It was spring, in Seattle, and the air had been cluttered with small pink petals from the cherry blossoms that Duo had wanted to see. They’d eaten lunch outside the house with the butterflies and Heero couldn’t even remember everything Duo had said, as it had been so disconnected - one concept from another - and so fast, but he remembered the light making those violet eyes seem so full of life and joy. He remembered sunlight on chestnut hair and how Duo’s braid had pooled on the brilliant green grass, and how he had thought that Earth was actually really beautiful, but right then, it wasn’t the park that had been beautiful. How vividly the memory brought back Duo’s smile, the color in his lips, and how wonderful everything had seemed, no matter that Heero could recognize the shabbiness of his clothes. 

Of all the crazy things Duo had said that day that Heero really couldn’t remember any serious detail, there was one moment when he smiled, so brilliant, eyes closed, as wide as a human mouth could grin, and then he’d said, “So like, I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’ll wait for me?”

He could hear his own voice in the memory. “I will wait for you. I’ll be here when you come back.”

So it was ten years later, and Heero only realized he’d been waiting diligently in the last seconds he expected to have of his life. He was going to break his promise. It wasn’t like there weren’t other agents who were just as good as he was. There was nothing in this mission, that he assessed retroactively, that had been so important that he was going to break his promise. 

And that’s when he started hallucinating. 

A black spike penetrated the outer airlock door, deep like a wasp tail a bit, just deep enough before it pulled the wider end of the stinger back. 

Heero hadn’t thought the thoughts about Duo were that odd. He expected that thinking about unfinished business was not that unusual, but giant predatory insects in space - that was pretty strange. He reached up and pulled the face mask down on his helmet and was comforted when it made a seal, right before the outer airlock doors were ripped off the space station. The inner doors swooshed shut, only buckling just a little, which Heero fairly calmly noted as the outrush of air threw him into deep space. 

Cold soaked into him so quickly he didn’t even feel it. The wasp he’d imagined was more like a spider and it proceeded to rip the colony open - new and strange weaponry, and yes, okay, so now he remembered why this mission had been important. It was unfortunate that he’d failed. HIs last breath flipped out in a thick mist and all he felt was calm. 

Which went completely away with his next breath. Fire roared through his lungs, but there wasn’t any air to scream with. His reached out and his hand ran into curved smooth surface, glass, same temperature as the fluid he was in. His eyes snapped open and he tried to hold his breath, only to have air pushed in through the tube in his mouth. He trashed in the fluid, trying to spin, to gain some understanding of where he was. 

Three hard knocks on the tube he was in got his attention and there was Duo Maxwell, looking almost exactly as he had on that day in the park, no wrinkles, no age, except in his eyes somehow. Heero couldn’t hear the words, but Duo’s lips clearly mouthed, “Calm down! Go back to sleep, Heero.”

That seemed like such a good idea that Heero couldn’t keep himself awake anymore. He dreamed, lovely dreams. He and Duo were in a car, an old kind that needed gasoline, but they were driving across the North American continent. They didn’t have much to say to each other, but it was okay. Just being with Duo was all he wanted. He felt so comfortable, his seat leaned back, the top down on the car, beautiful blue sky, and out of no where he asked, “Why didn’t you come home?”

Duo turned to him, smiling, so calm, a calm that seemed oddly out of place suddenly. “I meant to, you know. The project just went wrong and getting home was problematic.” 

Heero sat up, jaw tight. “How so?” 

Then the bottom released and all the fluid he was in dropped out, carrying him with it. He pulled the tubing from his throat and greedily sucked real air, dry and stale air. Naked, but not cold, he slipped on the gel like fluid as he worked on getting to his feet. There were hundreds, thousands, of other tubes, but all empty. The only lighting ran along the baseboards, a muted golden light that diffused without leaving much for shadows. There was such a dead stillness to the space, as huge as it seemed to be, but bland and empty. For a brief flash, Heero feared he was the only living being on the ship. Still leaning against the tube, the base of it caught his attention and the writing there, in a symbols the kind of which he’d never seen. 

It’s very hard to check and see if you’re insane, if you might actually be insane. What had Duo been saying that day in the park? So many things, but they hadn’t made much sense, and Heero vaguely remembered doubting Duo’s sanity that day. Archeological project... he’d been talking about an archaeological project. Duo wasn’t an archeologist. At least, Heero didn’t think he was, and that stuff happened on Earth, didn’t?

Duo was a salvage expert, but he’d been doing college classes. Heero reached down to touch the strange symbols on the base. They glowed under his fingertips. 

Duo was good at space salvage. Preventers had labeled Duo a conflict resolution specialist, which meant he was really good at talking his way out of shit and he could resort to violence if he needed to. 

Whatever craft they were on, it had to be at least as big as a full sized colony, because Heero couldn’t feel the slightest movement under his feet, none of the very subtle hum of a smaller craft.

Duo was here. He was alive. Heero smiled, then really smiled. All he had to do was find him.


End file.
